Here's the deal: I have a 220 MB stripped Windows XP HDD image which I use every day. It has a BOOT.INI file like the one I gave a link to as well as all HAL and kernel combinations. When I boot the HDD image with MEMDISK or GRUB4DOS on all manner of hardware, I have to guess at which BOOT.INI choice to make. If it boots past the "light blue" screen (because I use the /SOS in BOOT.INI), then I have a [possibly semi-] compatible HAL and kernel combo, and can move on.No, I installed Windows in VirtualBox, mounted it with Winmount & then made the image. But, I booted the image on my desktop, the physical machine.
The Windows auto-logs in, which I'm assuming yours does, as well.
Then I have a batch file:
@echo off echo. echo ENDLESS LOOP TO KILL "Found New Hardware Wizard" echo. echo You will have to close this window manually. :_start cmdow "Files Needed" /end > nul 2>&1 cmdow "Found New Hardware Wizard" /end > nul 2>&1 goto _startAnd I put the batch file in the Start menu -> Programs -> Startup. When I boot on new hardware, there's no mouse nor keyboard until Windows has gone through and attempted to install all the devices. The batch file kills any user-interaction popups; allowing device installation to continue all the way through, albeit with possibly unknown devices at the end. At least I get mouse and keyboard out of it.
Get rid of system file checker from your image, or at least temporarily disable it.